Many politicians in America are currently practicing lawyers. Consider America's state legislatures. Packed with lawyers feathering their own nests at every turn. At the national level, members of America's Congress strive to put their name on a law, and then upon leaving congress, go into practice brokering advice on that law to those being "regulated" by it. Judges at the state level are as incestuously involved -- in their cases, being ever-mindful that they may someday receive a paycheck from the law firms appearing before them -- getting a position as "of counsel" or some similarly named and disguised payoff for judicial services rendered.

Your well-intentioned comments skirt the basic problem: what is the rationale for the legal profession and is it being met? Barring statistically immaterial exceptions, the answer must be no. Till this is addressed, anything else is re-arranging the deck chairs in an impending disaster of Titanic proportions, only less visible because the system is so horribly self-perpetuating. Any attempt at reform is dismissed as blasphemy in a medieval cult.

Take the hallowed principle of professional privilege: laudably conceived to ensure defendants access the law unconstrained, it has been hollowed out as a self-serving device to protect lawyer's wrongs, away from any independent review. The blind faith that lawyers will always abide by their obligations to the Court ignores human traits and is akin to outdated concepts such as the divine right of kings. Which other profession is so immune from scrutiny?

What lawyers get away with in the course of prosecution and defence is beyond belief: a few diligent judges are ill-equipped to deal with it. The common law adversarial system where lawyers can, with impunity, embellish their case and dismiss inconvenient evidence makes this worse than a lottery. If justice is ever done, it is not because the system is designed for it.

Another issue is the lofty pedestal judges occupy. They can be unwieldy, verbose, asleep during trials and worse, delay decisions without fear of retribution. In short, they are free to commit contempt of their own Courts with the hapless consumer wringing his hands!

The separation of powers whereby the Parliament, the executive and the judiciary do not cross their boundaries is another legal fiction. Show me a case where the executive can haul up a judge for inappropriate administrative behaviour just as a judge can haul up the executive for a breach of the constitution or law?

Medical and other professional mistakes are uncovered through external scrutiny. Many right-minded lawyers who are appalled at the system they must follow or face defrocking are stampeded into submission or forced out into the academia to obtain gratification through legal masturbation.

Lawyers' mistakes are buried by them along with with their paying clients. Oh, for a Richard Dawkins professing legal atheism!

I hope some right-minded people (including lawyers) will lead the revolution...

If you think that lawyers are immune from scrutiny, I invite you to check out any state's bar journal and the pages full of disbarred lawyers. Lawyers are far more well regulated than many other professions, like doctors.

Conine, I agree lawyers are subject to scrutiny, but by whom? Sadly, other lawyers. Non-lawyers seldom get a look in, other than the odd disgruntled lawyer / employee or a brave journo blowing the whistle. Another instance of 'form over substance', where lawyers excel. Whenever other professions are called into question, invariably experts not of the same persuasion - many lawyers - are involved. The public require - nay, demand - this cosy club syndrome 'of, for and by' lawyers is busted. Let us not forget judges are lawyers too, pickled in the inscrutable ways of the cult. Together with the abuse of legal professional privilege and the absence of any INDEPENDENT check, 'legal mafia' ticks every box in the definition.

You are misinformed and incorrect in the extreme. Bar organizations in many states operate as protectionist operations and early-warning services serving the larger law firms. Most disbarrments are of small and sole practitioners caught stealing client escrow funds, while the real larceny is committed against clients by large and connected firms through fraudulent billing and many other corrupt practices.

State bar organizations in America should be Federally administered by the DOJ, and should use the FBI for monitoring attorneys rampant misconduct.

One thing that's troubling about the current practice of law is reflected in the many daytime TV ads which start, 'If you have been denied Social Security disability benefits, call...'. No way to know how many people are really disabled, but the fact that it has become another legal industry speaks for itself. No need to comment on, 'If you have been injured in an accident or by any drug..'.

Cost of legal education has gone up for reasons that should be discussed. In 1966-1969, law school tuition was $500 per semester at a public university law school. Now it is $39,000 per year. The university is becoming a private school. The state provides only 4% of the funding of this public university. The tuition rises as public funding drops. Medicaid funding by states as required by federal law has reduced state funding for higher education. We care for the poor at the expense of creating futures for the capable and productive. Law school education teaches questioning and critical thinking skills like no other education and it is highly beneficial to society. Three years is hardly an introduction to the wide fields of the law. Yet all fields are linked and ignorance of those links risks error. That third year was as valuable to me as the first. It was tough. That hourly rates continue to rise in some urban areas does not mean they rise elsewhere. So the $50 per hour of the 1970's is now maybe $200 in the depressed 2012's. Hardly keeping up with the inflated costs of law school. We need more engineers, chemists, geologists, biologists but their salaries are less. The disfunction of salaries is not justified. My seven years of education is matched by 6 to 7 years of my scientific colleagues. Yes, I use my 4 years of undergraduate eduction to understand the many directions of my law practice, be it sciences, government, or writing. Breadth is hard to maintain while narrow specialization is also required. Yet problem solving without litigation is the daily practice of most lawyers. Litigation remains for the intractable problems not otherwise resolved.

When considering torts, just remember that litigation after the fact is a substitute for regulation before the fact, and wealthy Americans and business interests are against regulation before the fact.

Do we prevent persons or organizations from violating the rights of other persons or organizations up front, possibly micro-managing and stifling them?

Or do we let them do as they please, but allow people to sue afterward when they do something wrong?

Stricter limitations on the financial sector from 1995 to 2010 would have meant less litigation now. And they would have protected everyone, not just those cranky enough to litigate who then hit the legal jackpot. But we might not have had all that "financial innovation."

Sector by sector, the American legal system has devolved to serve its major objective: the feeding of the hoards of greedy American lawyers. It is hard to find a single law, judicial convention, or legislative action which is not "alligned" to serve the greed objectives of the American legal profession. Yes there are a few noble lawyers who are doing good -- and generally they are starving. Then there are the necessary legal mechanics who do important, technical legal work which enables good things -- those are no more than 25,000 of the 1.1 million lawyer hoard in America.

Ninety percent of the 1.1 American lawyers in America are a productivity-inhibiting dead weight tax on America, which is a tax that it USED TO BE ABLE TO AFFORD, but can afford no longer. In America, the lawyers have latched on to every function of government such that the citizens cannot reasonably access these functions of government without paying protection money to an American lawyer. This is wrong on many levels.

The sooner America restructures its legal system to remove the necessity of lawyers from so many facets of American life, the better it will be for America.

The recent great recession surely ran a few out of the "profession", and kept others from entering it, but this was no more than "a good start". America needs no more than 100,000 lawyers, and might well be able to do with more like 50,000. The rest are a non-value-added extractive industry ruining so many things which used to be great about America, including its legislatures at the federal and state level.

BAM! There goes 70% of the litigation and the need for 70% f the attorneys. The world would be a better place if the courts were filled with real cases instead of the many "maybe we can get some money or at least slow them down" cases.

At the same time, it might encourage an enterprising law firm to take on a mountain of Monsanto lawyers to represent a group of small farmers, knowing that when they win (however many years it takes) they will recover every dime of their cost on top of the damage award.

Having the loser pay at least a portion of the winner's costs is an important deterrent to frivolous litigation, I agree. We have such costs awards in Canada, though they probably don't go far enough, and it may indeed contribute to our slightly less litigious culture.

However, eliminating settlements is crazy. The system would grind to a halt. It's tough enough to give everyone who wants a trial their day in court. To force all the cases there would be disastrous and unnecessary. The filing of a statement of claim is just the first step in a process that actually helps the parties reach an agreement (settlement). It provides for such things as discovery of documents and questioning of witnesses, all of which help each side know it's case and that of the other side. Increasingly this process also includes court-mandated or court-administered mediation too. After a certain distance down this road, most parties are able to settle without a judge becoming involved. And they can usually come up with a better arrangement than what a judge might impose. I used to work with judges and I frequently saw them chastise parties for *not* settling. It is rare that the issues are so difficult that a judge needs to sort it out, but it doesn't mean that launching the lawsuit was unnecessary or unhelpful.

I'm not saying people can't settle their differences. They could even hire a professional mediator (as some do). I'm saying that if you file a suit, you must take it all the way. This would discourage the endless posturing and filing for motions that cost billions of dollars and keep lawyers in their Aspen condos.
Would the court system become overloaded? It's hard for you and I to say. Often, one solution causes other problems that need to be solved. Whatever they are, I think we'd be better off trying to solve them, rather than the problem we have.

Again, filing a lawsuit is actually a way to assist people in settling their differences. It provides processes and tools that you don't get any other way (such as discovery). It is not a bad thing to start down the path that can eventually end in trial, but not go to trial. The system depends one it. If you want to discourage delays and posturing, that's fine. There are ways to do that (such as via case management and cost awards) that do not depend on the draconian, baby-out-with-the-bathwater approach you propose.

And yes, I worked in the court system. I am confident saying that if you required every case to go to trial, it would become (even more) overloaded, overnight.

I agree that in the short term it would be disastrous, but in the long term, people adapt. The question on the table is really, what would those adaptations look like? I propose that they would force an increase in docket management efficiency. It might spur some innovations in the use of technology to speed proceedings. In general, the solutions to the problems this change would create would be beneficial to all concerned. At least, that's what I'm contending.

Exactly! You must be a lawyer. If I were a lawyer, that would be dumbest idea I ever heard, too. Of course, calling an idea "dumb" is not exactly a strong debate strategy, so maybe you're not a lawyer, but just somebody who supports their well-being.

Once upon a time, human beings worked out differences amongst themselves. Now, they hire a lawyer. I am simply advocating for a return to the old practice. It won't be good for lawyers or our current legal system, but my point is that these are not things for which we should be optimizing our judicial system.

I think the elimination of settlements to be a poor idea, but leaving that aside, I don't think its possible. Imagine a system where a trial was required, but the parties wanted to make a deal: "Your honor, we're prepared to try the case today---on stipulated facts."

I think there is a far bigger problem - irresponsible law-suits, driven by increasingly bigger success-fees. Unless this approach is changed towards offering correct legal advice to their clients, and fee charging for the same, the legal arena is unlikely to shift focus on quality and sustainability.

"Cheaper legal education and more liberal rules would benefit America’s lawyers—and their clients"
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What about "BETTER legal education and more SUPERVISION rules would benefit America’s lawyers—and their clients"
Usually, the lawyers make BAD/CONTRADICTORY laws that they will exploit with their astronomic fees. Have a look at 2700 pages Obama care that is full of HIDDEN political rules ... How many Billions the "lawmakers" gifted the other lawyers. That stinks !

While I agree with the primary points pithily presented, the article is incorrect about Canada; with rare exception (special circumstances, McGill accepts some Quebec students without undergraduate degrees, and a few admits after 2 years of another undergraduate program) an unrelated first degree is required as in the U.S., which I agree is inefficient and overly costly. A compromise rather than direct entry from high school might be for the norm to be 1 or 2 years of university as a prerequisite, not a full degree.

Also, while the degree has historically been an LL.B. (a baccalaureate), most now call it a J.D. as in the U.S. (Quebec, with a civil law tradition, is somewhat different as compared with the rest of Canada). Primarily in reaction to the University of Toronto, which in part for competitive reasons (marketing its graduates to the U.S. and internationally) wanted the same degree letters as the U.S. now gives.

Rainmakers and young lawyers are also leaving behind the old "partnership model". Who wants to be jointly liable on the debts of a bunch of partners with whom you have no control or oversight. Everything from in-house counsel, legal temp, and having a small boutique firm that has non-lawyers do a lot of the paperwork (my model) means that only the inflexible or hidebound are left on the sinking ships of large law firms.

Time to evolve or die.

BTW: In Canada, you do not do law as an undergraduate program. Like the US, you need to go to an approved law school to get a law degree, with the minimum entry requirement tending to be at least an undergraduate degree.